Expedite work on 4G connectivity in J&K: Chief Secretary to officials
Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo on Thursday flagged the slow pace of progress over the saturation of 4G connectivity in Jammu and Kashmir. He also directed the officers to work in a coordinated manner to expedite the project for its timely completion.
He passed these directions during a review meeting at the Civil Secretariat here, where the officials discussed several issues hampering the project.
The Secretary of the Public Works (R&B) Department and the Secretary of the Revenue Department were also present here, while the Principal Secretary of the Power Development Department, the Secretary of the Rural Development Department, the Additional Secretary of the IT Department, and the General Manager of BSNL attended the meeting through video conferencing.
The Chief Secretary directed the service provider to complete the work on all handed over sites without any delay. “There is no scope for any leniency and things should not be kept lingering around without any justifiable reasons,” an official statement quoted Dulloo.
The objective of the project is to provide 4G mobile services to residents in remote villages across the UT.
The Chief Secretary also asked the Principal Secretary of the Power Development Department to speed up the process of providing electricity connection to the towers. He said that a mechanism should be developed so that electricity is provided to the towers as soon as they get completed.
He also directed the authorities to identify alternative land in lieu of the earlier proposed site that was not found feasible as per the quality standards.
The CGM, BSNL, gave a presentation on the 4G saturation project, regarding sites and land allotment details, tower erection and highlighted the challenges that they were facing in completing the project. He said that work is in progress at different stages and is being monitored continuously.
He informed officials that they had been allotted land at 711 sites and civil work had started on 563 sites – 279 in Jammu and 284 in Kashmir. Meanwhile, towers have been erected on 355 sites (Jammu-149, Srinagar-206). He said 122 4G sites have been made ON-Air and 200 more sites will be made ON-Air by the end of September as per the target.
